After a few months working away in the Solomon Islands for
the UNDP I arrived back in New Zealand. It wasn’t how I anticipated to come
back, but due to various stuff ups, mostly not of my own making, I ended back
here sooner than expected.
It was a rapid fire six months. Sometimes in the Solomon
Islands it’s hard to know what has been achieved after you step away from the
environment you have been working in. Progress is certainly hard won. I know from
an earlier volunteer role lasting two years in which tangible outputs were hard
to identify, I couldn’t claim I assisted with developing new roads or help
design new wharves. Sadly this is how success is measured. It’s about how many
kilometres of road had you developed, how many people had had been at the receiving
end of power point presentations. Given my understanding of development practice
and the context I had been working in of the Solomon Islands, these quantitative
measures based on simply sheer numbers, more of something being better now seems
like a quaint measures of development. We should have care about qualitative
rather than quantitative measures of success. What was the quality of what was
done, did it result in meaningful change for those involved should be asked, when
quality is used as a measure it often has no basis in the actually realties of quality
outcomes for that cultural context. What I found is that quality was determined
by what others thought was quality based on worldviews formed from experience in
other countries or the country in which they resided (Australia, Europe or United
States of America).
What I did achieve in my recent work and my earlier
volunteer assignment was engaging people in discussions, demonstrating new
skills, exposing them to new literature and concepts and helping to develop
critical thinking. What I was sought to do was build the capacity of
individuals so they had the confidence to be effective public servants and if
needed, confront the culture they live and work in.
Clearly we are using the wrong measure for successful
development. We need measure the capacity of individuals. It is these
individuals that will create the change in their own country. A friend and I
discuss this a lot, both of us agree that in the Solomon Islands the approach
of donors is often wrong, often by significant margins. Climate Change is an area
where donors are still exploring what it is they should be doing. Observing this
first hand in the Solomon Islands has been an eye opener in many ways.
With Climate Change programmes a phenomenal amount of money is
being spent on what are commonly called Climate Change and Disaster Risk (CCDRM)
related projects. What was formally sustainable land management is now called
ecosystem based adaptation, water and sanitation projects are now Climate
Change adaptation. Construction of infrastructure has variously been called
service delivery and now appears in many cases also claims to be Climate Change
adaptation. As a friend once said to me service delivery is when the actual quality
of services improve, meaning when the capacity of individuals to personally
contribute to the delivery of high quality services improves, built infrastructure
is only a part of this, the individual is the larger part.
From what I have learnt Climate Change will not be overcome in
the Solomon Islands without institutions with the capacity to adequately respond.
It sounds pretty straight forward right!
One of the biggest problems I encountered is that strengthening
of governance processes is not cheap, certainly it’s not considered sexy. It’s
far more appealing to invest money in infrastructure, agricultural extension programmes
are also much easier for donors to market. A large Climate Change programme in
Choiseul Province had a significant component that involved agricultural programmes
but requests by the Provincial Government to support strengthening of governance
processes and structures was dismissed early in the ‘consultation’ phase.
Donors are often more concerned ensuring brand distinction than
they are with actual outcomes. I suggested over the course of my recent work that
we work together with other donors, essentially pooling resources. The response
back was somewhat stunning, apparently this couldn’t be, partly this was
expressed that we had to maintain our own profile and distinctiveness of our
activities, working in with others may have resulted in these being obscured. As
a kiwi I still believe we need creative solutions for what appear
insurmountable problems, we have to do things different; the recent past in Climate
Change work in the Solomon Islands is littered with examples of programmes that
did alright, nothing spectacular, just alright. I don’t accept mediocrity is
adequate when significant resources are available to achieve inspirational
outcomes. From what transpired working together only meant shared meetings or
workshops, possibly a bit of sharing ideas (but not too much of course). What
needs to happen is a completely open approach whereby funds are pooled and intellectual
property built and owned collectively. We still have a lot of work to be done.
